The agricultural transition in New York State

The Agricultural Transition in New York State focuses on the transformation of the U.S. agricultural economy in the middle of the nineteenth century and its impact on farm families. The author examines class formation, migration, and family structure in the context of emerging agricultural markets and the growing availability of cheap consumer goods.

Drawing on U.S. and state census records, as well as agricultural publications of the era and farmers' diaries and letters, Parkerson employs quantitative methodology as well as the techniques of traditional narrative history to re-create the economic world in which nineteenth-century farmers secured their livelihood.